A Writer's Writer: Two Perspectives

Two perspectives about writer J. M. Coetzee are presented. Gunnars' perspective says that the central issue in much of what Coetzee writes is what is often regarded as the fundamental problem of twentieth- and now twenty-first century literature in general. Gurnah, on the other hand, says that Coetzee's writing is firmly rooted in South African realities, in its history and its political complexities and ironies, in the failure of human sympathy that is the consequence of colonialism and apartheid.